


Solar Flare

by thenakednymph



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I'm cleaning up my google docs today, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Sorry for the fic dump today
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18650857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenakednymph/pseuds/thenakednymph
Summary: "If you could be any inanimate object what would you be and why?"~Lance's own question backfires on him and Keith winds up seeing more than Lance wants him to.





	Solar Flare

**Author's Note:**

> This is legitimately one of my favorite questions to ask people. What would you guys be?

“If you could be any inanimate object what would you be and why?” Lance asks as they sit together, their backs to the nearby solar flare on the screens of the observation room. They’re both nursing their own cups of tea.

“Excuse me?” Keith blinks at him in surprise, not sure he’s heard Lance correctly.

“You heard me.” Lance grins.

Keith blinks as if that will help him process the question. 

“Well yeah but-” His eyebrows furrow and he purses his lips. “Seriously?” 

Lance nods. “Yeah, seriously.” His hands are clasped loosely between his knees as he leans forward. 

Keith’s face wrinkles. “Why?”

“Because it lets me get deep into the psyche of the people around me,” Lance teases, leaning forward to poke Keith in the middle of the forehead. “They give away their darkest secrets without realizing it.” He wiggles his eyebrows theatrically.

Keith frowns but seriously considers his answer. “I’ve never thought about it before,” he says slowly. 

It takes him several minutes to come up with an answer and Lance sits quietly, letting him think. He knows it’s not an easy question to answer.

“It’s- not really an inanimate object but it’s all I can think of?” Keith finally says, looking at Lance sideways.

“Tell me anyway.” 

Keith bites his cheek, elbows resting across his knees. “Blue,” he finally says. 

Lance’s face screws up, “Like the color?” 

Keith nods, his eyes on the floor. “Yeah.” 

Lance pouts contemplatively, trying to pin down why before he just asks. 

Keith runs his thumb over his palm. “Because then I always get to be someone’s favorite,” he ventures, his voice low. He lifts his head but doesn’t turn to look at Lance. “I get to be the reason someone smiles. I get to make them happy.” 

“You get to be loved,” Lance finishes, staring at Keith, his eyes sad.

Keith bites the inside of his cheek but doesn’t deny it. 

“Someone somewhere is always going to hate me,” he says. He finally looks at Lance. “But I always get to be someone’s favorite color,” he says softly. 

Lance is struck by how sad that is and his stomach twists. He forces a nonchalance into his voice he doesn’t feel, leaning back into his hands and stretching out his legs. 

“Well congratulations then. You get to be  _ my _ favorite.” He wiggles his eyebrows and it draws a smile to Keith’s face. 

“What about you?”

“What about me?” Lance rocks his feet back and forth, in and out, watching the shadows they cast.

“You know, the inanimate object question.” Keith bumps his knee into Lance’s, jostling him. “What would you be?”

Lance blinks dumbly, the light from the sun behind them catching in the dark of Keith’s hair, setting it afire. The entire room is bathed in warm light, flickering and dancing like fire, like Keith’s quintessence.

“Huh.” Lance makes a face, his mouth slack. “You know, for all the times I’ve asked people that,” he says slowly as if he’s just realizing it for the first time, “no one's ever asked me back.” He blinks dumbly.

“So you haven’t thought about it?”

“Well I didn’t say that.” A coy smile pulls at the side of Lance’s mouth before he sobers for a moment. “But no, I guess I haven’t.” He chews on his lip for a moment, staring through the far wall as if he can find the answer there. Several minutes pass in silence, Lance’s knee beginning to bounce as he sits back. 

Keith hides a smile behind his cup. 

“Find the answer you were looking for?” he teases. 

Lance nods firmly. “A sun.” His voice is soft, something in it keeping Keith from making a jibe about wanting to be the center of the universe. 

“Why?” he asks instead, tone only a little bit teasing and Lance turns serious. 

“I want to able to support others. Something that gives life, bolstering those around me, bringing light and warmth to them. Something that they can see by and use to better their lives.” He shrugs like he doesn’t think he’s getting his point across.

“I don’t know, I guess when I think of the sun I think of laughter and love.” He looks at Keith. “I want to see the people I care about like that. Full of life and love and laughter. I want them to be happy. I want to  _ make _ them happy.”

To his surprise Keith frowns, eyebrows knitting together and Lance’s smile fades, feeling self-conscious. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had called him stupid for something similar. 

“What?”

Keith glances at Lance for a moment, gaze skittering away, worrying at his lip.

“Seriously man, what?”

Keith’s expression twists again before he shrugs, staring down into his cup. He’s too quiet, just studying Lance pensively with this look on his face Lance can’t quite place. 

“Just seems kind of sad and self-destructive though doesn’t it?” he asks softly. 

Lance tilts his head curiously. He hadn’t thought about it like that. “How so?”

“Well,” Keith says slowly, rolling his cup and watching the liquid swirl inside. “It’s a pretty one sided exchange.” The liquid tips to the rim of the cup and back again. “To give so much of yourself to others, to bring light and warmth and joy to their lives only to one day collapse, leaving a terrible hole behind where you used to be, the loss utterly destroying the lives of those you once sought to support.” He shrugs awkwardly. “That’s just, I don’t know, kind of devastating?”

Lance pales at that, realizing maybe he’s inadvertently given away more about himself than he meant to. He’d only been kidding before but Keith has just nailed a lot of who Lance is at heart through nothing more than a silly inane question and he feels terribly vulnerable. 

He tries to laugh it off, picking up his cup and taking a sip of his own tea. 

“Pretty sure I don’t mean that much to anyone’s life for it to utterly collapse without me,” he jokes. “Even  _ my _ ego isn’t that big.” He hangs his head, scuffing at his hair, staring down into his reflection in the mug. “I haven’t had that much of an impact on anyone’s life,” he says sadly. But he wants to.

He lifts his cup to his lips and nearly chokes on his tea when Keith says, “You did on mine.” His face is perfectly serious, violet eyes open and honest, edged with a hurt Lance doesn’t quite understand and Lance coughs, trying to breathe. Keith has the decency to wait until Lance is no longer dying before continuing. 

“What?” His throat is burning.

“Lance you light up every room you walk into, leave every place you visit better than you found it,” he says and he actually sounds sincere. “You make people want to be better just by being there. You inspire hope in the midst of despair.” He searches Lance’s eyes, gaze flickering. 

“I’d walk into hell for you or follow you through a war whether or not you asked me to.” He continues to frown, just studying Lance who can’t look away, even as his heart begins to skip and skitter, tripping over itself in his chest. Even when his vision goes blurry, tears spilling over his lashes and down his cheeks. He can’t speak, can’t breathe, can’t blink, afraid to shatter whatever the moment is that’s happening because this can’t be real. 

Keith reaches out and brushes Lance’s tears away, the frown still on his face. 

“How do you not know that? Or the effect you have on people?” 

Lance’s throat clicks and he clears it awkwardly, still afraid to blink or look away. 

“No one’s...no one’s ever told me,” he rasps, blatantly staring. “I’ve never mattered to anyone. Not really.” Keith thumbs another tear away. 

“You matter to me.” He shakes his head sadly. “How do you give so much of yourself away without anything in return? Why?”

Lance finally looks away but not before Keith can see the terrible hurt in his eyes and it’s an old hurt, one Lance has carried for a long time. Keith may not know that particular pain, but he knows old pain and his heart aches for Lance. 

He sniffles, wiping at his face with the back of a wrist and shrugging. 

“No one’s ever wanted to give anything back before.” 

Keith is devastated as the weight of that settles into him. 

“Lance you’re killing yourself,” Keith whispers, horrified. “One day at a time, in little ways. If you keep giving away little pieces of your heart, of yourself...one day you’ll have nothing left. Stop giving yourself to people who aren’t worth it.”

“Who says they’re not worth it?” Lance asks, voice turning peevish as he scowls at Keith.

“Me.” Keith’s eyes are pleading. “Because they’re taking you away from me. Every piece of you that someone throws away is another piece I’m losing.”

Lance lifts his head, throat working silently, a deep want and terrified hope in his eyes as their gazes meet. 

“Then make me stop.” It sounds like a plea and stars, Keith wants to.

“How?” His eyes flicker between Lance’s as he sits up, turning his body to face Keith, their knees bumping and Keith knows Lance is going to kiss him.

“Be worth it,” he says softly. 

Lance ducks his head, angling to press a kiss to Keith’s lips. It’s soft and warm and makes Keith’s heart skip in his chest. The glaring sun behind them rises and falls as another flare slowly dies and Keith hopes that instead of an end this is a new beginning. 


End file.
